


One step back

by InStress_Panic



Category: Enderal (Video Game)
Genre: Catharsis Ending, F/F, Gen, Look if you've finished the game u already know what this is, Spoilers, making choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 05:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14325822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InStress_Panic/pseuds/InStress_Panic
Summary: As expected, everything she worked for, fought for, bled for, came down to one thing:The Beacon.Your decision… is it final?She just hadn't thought it meant saying goodbye.





	One step back

_Your decision… is it final?_

 

Calia looks at her, even as her words echo in the vault and fade into darkness. She looks just as lost as Arsen feels. The end of the world is here. Its fate lies in her hands, and she’s not sure what to do.

The blue glow of the mushrooms give Calia’s face a sick pallor, and Arsen thinks back to all those months ago – sitting on her bed in the Curarium, listening to this stranger talk about choices and how, no matter what you choose, you will always wonder whether you made the right one.

“Can you leave?” Arsen says quietly. “Get out of the blast radius if I – if I destroy the Beacon?”

Calia’s breath hitches, just slightly, but she holds her gaze, unwilling to look away. “I could, maybe. There’s a tunnel – a secret tunnel from here that leads to the South District. If I get a myrad I could – yes, there’s a chance.”

A chance.

Just a chance.

Arsen leans against the wall, more out of exhaustion than anything else. The cold seeps into her cuirass, and it helps ground her.

They could do as the Black Guardian said – flee to the Starcity. Wait for the next cycle and guide the next humans to be free of ego or whatever it is that the High Ones feed on. She'll take Calia with her, of course she will. She has time, and with the limitless power of being this cycle’s Prophetess, she may even find what made the Light Born immortal and give it to Calia.

(She refuses to live forever. Not without Calia.)

But – she looks at Calia, at the brown hair and solemn eyes that only seem to warm for her. Calia, who blew up a fort gate with powder kegs because _obviously_ there was no other solution. Calia, who finds beauty in long dead cities and a poor blacksmith’s sister. Calia, who believes that people can be more than what they are, if only they tried.

Arsen smiles.

She can’t – won’t play god. She won’t give up on millions of people. She won’t take that decision from them. So humans can be cruel and prideful and selfish, but they can also be kind and brilliant and brave.

She just has to believe.

She has to.

“You have to leave,” she finally says, taking off her gloves and reaching for Calia’s hand. She wants to feel warm, one last time. “I’ll delay it for as long as I can, but you have to leave.”

Calia closes her eyes, mouth twisting in pain, and Arsen knows it’s not because of the Beacon. She takes her hand and closes the distance between them until their foreheads touch. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“I know,” Arsen says and the rest of her words clog up in her throat. She doesn’t want to die. But she’s the only one that can do this – she has to try.

She tugs off the leather cord around her neck with her free hand, turning it over and opening her fingers to show a simple silver ring studded with flawless sapphires she had collected during her travels. It wasn’t her best work, her blacksmith’s hands were always better suited for weapons than for jewelry, but she had wanted to give Calia something before everything, and a new greatsword would just take too much time.

“It’s not much,” she says, voice coming out in a whisper. “But I made it for you yesterday and, and –” her voice cracks at the end. “It’s not much,” she finishes.

Calia’s breath come in small gasps, like she's trying not to cry, but a few tears slip off from her eyes regardless. “Okay,” she says. “Okay.”

Arsen lets go of her hand for just a moment to tie the cord around Calia’s neck. It doesn’t take long, and soon they’re back to holding hands, fingers clenched too tightly but neither caring.

“You have to tell people,” Arsen says. “They have to know. This has to be the last cycle.”

“It will. I’ll tell them, and it’ll be better.”

Arsen leans forward, capturing her lips in a kiss that lasts too short and too long. I love you is said in the desperate clench of her fingers, and the hesitant way she tries to let go.

The words are stuck in her throat, but she forces them out regardless. She has to say this. Calia has to know.

“The Black Guardian – he said I was, I was a projection of the person I used to be. That I was made from her – from my last wish, before I died.” She breathes in. “I wanted to be special,” she admits, and the words don’t taste as bitter as she expects them to be. “I wanted to be important.”

Arsen looks up, catching Calia’s gaze. She hadn’t realized she had looked down. She smiles, the scar on her lips twisting up. “And I realized, when I was talking to the Black Guardian, that I was. Not – not because of all this ‘Prophetess’ thing. But because – because I was important to someone, to _you_ , and it’s everything I ever wanted.”

“I’m sorry,” she says helplessly when Calia stays silent, her teeth gritted shut like she's trying not to let out a sob. “I’m sorry it has to end this way.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Calia says, voice soft and pained, and she finally lets go.

* * *

 

She finds Jespar near the staircase and her heart breaks all over again for her best friend.

Archmagister Lexil laying prone on the ground had been a gutpunch, but seeing Jespar almost dead, eyes sunken and skin gray is a new pain she can’t comprehend. He was never the kind of man who stayed still.

No more nights of drinking in the Dancing Nomad, long talks under the stars about morals and principles and life, or of collapsing on one or the other’s bed, giggling and happy and drunk, and waking up with a hangover and still clothed bodies tangled in sheets.

“…but you’re still here,” he says, voice still drawling and smooth, despite losing its liveliness. “You can stop it, you have to.”

She wants to say she can, that she will, but she has never lied to Jespar. Not about her dreams, or her past, and not even for this.

A brown shape catches her eye. There, miles above them, just a small blur in the sky – a large creature with wings that falters only slightly before it launches forward, disappearing into the horizon.

Arsen smiles.

“It’s too late for that,” she says. She thinks of Calia, kind and brilliant and brave, who refused to cry, even as they parted. “But there’s still hope.”

“Hope,” he says, smiling slightly, eyes already glazing over. “I like the sound of that.”

“Me too,” she says, and when Jespar finally stops responding, words dying in his throat before he can finish his sentence, she pulls out her sword and begins climbing up the steps towards the Beacon.

Towards the end.

She’s not the hero of this story anymore.

But she believes in the next one, and it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This game killed me and also I'm probably going to replay it as soon as I have time. This is unbeta-d because I am a fool. Maybe I'll write more Calia/Prophetess fics too once I finish my thesis. There's far too few here and it broke my heart just as much as the ending did.
> 
> Edit (4/16/18): Edited the summary cuz I didnt like it.
> 
> Edit (4/21/18): Grammar and some new words.


End file.
